Kleftes Menu or the Menu of the thieves
This menu and cooking technique finds it origin with the 18th century Cretan Freedom fighters or Kleftes (thieves). They lived their lives plundering and looting the Turkish occupiers of the island, and then had to retreat to their mountain hideouts. To avoid smoke and odours escaping from their hideouts they packed their food in dough/pastry or terra cotta pots. This was put in the hot ashes of a fire and the meat would cook without any odour escaping.

We produce an ‘oven’ version with lamb, potatoes, onion, oregano and goat’s cheese in greaseproof paper.

Yiouvétsi menu or the Sunday menu from the baker’s oven
Yiouvétsi is an earthenware pot, with 2 handles, glazed only on the inside. The name (from the Turkish yuvech) is used both for the pot and the cooking technique: uncovered baking in the oven using an earthenware pot. In Greece they mainly use meat or poultry with ‘kritharaki’ or ‘orso’ (rice shaped pasta) in an aromatic tomato sauce. Quite often this used to be the Sunday lunch dish, taken to the local baker. He would roast the meat, and followed instructions on when to add the pasta. And he remembered by heart which pot belonged to which family.

Gemista menu or ‘stuffed’ menu
To be honest with you, gemista only refers to stuffed vegetables. A large plate with stuffed tomatoes, peppers, courgettes and aubergines is so tempting that hardly anybody can resist it. Every chef gives it a personal touch, a different fresh herb, different oil or another stuffing mixture; in our case a Belgian touch. Our gemista menu pays respect to the Cretan tradition.

Lemoné Menu or Citroen Menu
Cretan people love their lemons – if there is enough space in their garden, they’ll plant a lemon tree. When we bought our house, it came with a lemon tree which, according to our neighbour Katerina is at least 30 years old. One harvest follows the other and lemons are in supply all year round. You can always find a bowl with lemons in a Cretan kitchen because nearly all Cretan recipes use a good helping of lemon juice. But as with many things in life, you either love it or hate it – even in our family we have different opinions...

Mezze Menu
One of the most interesting aspects of the Greek cuisine is the meze (pl. mezedes) culture. Lots of snacks and small dishes are put in the middle of the table and everybody helps themselves to whatever they want. The more guest arrive and the later it gets the more dishes will appear at the table. We made the following selection for you (this is not a definitive list)

Italian Menu – already a classic thanks to Christel
Vitello Tonnato
Tortellini à la Christel
Sabayon

North meets South Menu
Leek and myzithra cheese rolls in smoked ham
Lavraki of seabream, the Spetsos way
Ice cream and coffee

Palia Porta Menu
Venetian Salad with scampi, tomatoes and red onions
Leg of lamb with anchovies, aubergine tartlet with cheese and oven potatoes
Titamisu - our way